Not Even Two Months, a poem

It hasn't even been two months.

But people move on.

I understand. I don't blame them.

Before I lost my son, that's exactly what I did, too.

Somebody else's grief, and I moved on from it, because that's what you do when it isn't yours.

I can't move on.

There's nothing to move on to.

Move on implies a next place.

I don't have one of those yet.

I just have here, and here is unbearable, and I have to rebuild something before there's anywhere to move toward.

That takes time.

Nobody tells you how much.

Nobody tells you it might take longer than the people around you have patience for.

On the outside, I still function.

I show up. I answer. I do the things.

On the inside, I'm shattered,

in pieces small enough that I'm not sure they go back together

into the same shape they used to be.

I'm scared of becoming that guy.

The one who's always sad.

The one people brace themselves for.

The negative one.

I was the optimist.

That was mine. That was who I was.

I don't know how to be him anymore and it terrifies me that I might not know how again.

It's not my fault I lost my spark.

Not my fault I lost my desire, my drive.

I didn't set any of it down on purpose.

It was taken, the same day everything else was.

I can't help the apathy.

It's the only thing I truly feel, and even that costs me something to admit.

This is a lonely place.

Most people can't stand fully inside it with me, no matter how much they love me.

And it hasn't even been two months.